Managerial leadership practices - Talent management in requisite organization system

Speaker A Move to the talent management function or the process of talent management and how we talk about selection and orientation and deselection or dismissal. And again, I'll make the point that this is very much managerial work. But this is very often where human resources gets called in for rescue missions, as I call them. Sometimes they have to get very involved in this process. And if you think about the human resources function in the organization, traditionally people will use the word transaction to talk about what human resources does. In most organizations, they are accountable for the hiring process and they're accountable for the pay process and for the firing process or the termination process. And so very often this is where your traditional Stratum three human resources transaction work rests. In a lot of organizations, the things that we were talking about this morning with task clarity and Structuring and all the other parts of the system often happen at a different level of human resources in the organization. Some organizations call it OD organizational development. In my case, in my organization, we were both managed by the same manager. So it made it very easy to work on the Stratum four level HR work as well as Stratum three level HR work because there is different levels inside of human resources, of what's happening. So I just want to make sure that we are clear that this is very often where human resources will get involved in this process quickly and where they have to have their processes lined up underneath the entire management system. Because particularly in the States, there's a lot of legal requirements regarding selection and deselection from a role. I don't know how it is in other cultures, but that's important here. In selecting in terms of basic theoretical framework, you select a person. This is where I think for me, one of the greatest requisite organization is in terms of how a person gets put in the role. So once the role is clear, which is why we spent the time this morning talking about task clarity and the key accountability, then you select a person for a role. And oftentimes, Terry, my experience is that managers will hire someone, hope they can do it and not necessarily be clear about the role. And so in the selection process, you're looking for those four elements of suitability for a role. And this is sometimes where I get to do a lot of education with managers in the hiring process because we often have to back up and help them get clear on the role. If they're not clear on the task assignment for the role, they may not necessarily make the best selection, particularly in times of change where the role is changing. And I know Jerry talked about this this morning, a person has to have the necessary complexity of information processing. The CIP has to be right in order to do that. And if a level shifts and in many of our organizations that are growing the work of the role may in fact be shifting a whole level. So managers need to spend some time on the accountability and authority of the role to make sure that that's staying pure and what it needs to be. They need to value the work of the role. And sometimes we forget to ask that question. It's a wonderful place to insert a question in terms of would they value the work of the role? Is this something that they would enjoy doing in the interview process? And sometimes we forget to ask that question. We are very good at focusing on the necessary knowledge, skill and experience. That's what shows up on the resume, that's what shows up in the interview process. And managers understand that and they interview for that, but they may not always be understanding for the other two pieces. And then of course, the issue of temperament, problems of temperament that will interfere with doing the work of the role. And I always loved it. Nancy helped me very much with this when I first learned about the system. Dr. Jack said it's not the job of the organization to fix the person's mental problems, it's the job of the organization to make sure that the role is clear and that we provide that space where people can enter into those roles and do need and value the work of that role. And so we need to make sure that the elements of capability are in place as well as the knowledge and skill and values pieces. But most managers find these four points to be incredibly valuable in terms of selection as well as understanding. When there are what I call employee relations issues in the role and someone's not working, it's a wonderful diagnostic for what is not working in terms of that person's ability to be effective in the role. And sometimes it will show up as the negative behavior when one of the other three are not in alignment. And particularly with management, sometimes people don't even value the work of being a manager. So you have to get them to understand that. So I use this for selection, but I also use this very much for effectiveness in a role. As far as a diagnostic, the next piece of it in terms of initiative, process, work as elements of the selection process, how we work with managers. And again, to make the point, and we keep making the point all day long prior to beginning a search, you have to make sure that you're clear on the role. I back clear up and I work with managers when I do this, both internally and externally, because if they're not clear on the work that they need to get done, they will not make an appropriate selection for the role. And it's important that they understand this, including leveling the work of the role, the necessary knowledge, skill and experience need and then helping them prepare requisite interview questions that will help them uncover these pieces and parts because it can be done. And managers at Stratum Two and Stratum Three can be taught how to do this with the appropriate level of questions once they're clear on the work of the role. And we like to suggest that both the manager and the manager once removed, are involved in the interviewing process and that key accountability for that role or the task assignments are discussed as part of the interview. It seems quite basic, but I often have to remind managers to do this to make sure that there is at least a level of discussion of key accountabilities of the role in that interview process so that a candidate can say whether or not they would value that. If you remember, I like to call it like an engagement in a marriage. You're trying to establish that relationship and that sense of fairness right from the very beginning. So the sense of fairness in selection is to be able to clearly speak what the accountability of the role would be. Then we talk about managers providing orientation for new employees. And I have found in my practice that if you can teach managers also how to do this, you can get an employee up to speed and much more productive more quickly. Nancy and I had an experience with a manager who did this and actually took six months out of the process of getting that employee very productive and was amazed when we did it because I sat down with him and said, okay, what are the accountabilities of the role? What are the task assignments, and who does this person need to meet in order to really be effective in the role, and what's their plan for their first month of work as their manager? Because to the point that some of you are making this morning about the role of human resources, we will often give the assignment to human resources to orient people to the organization. That's great. You can talk about the benefits, you can talk about the various packages, but the accountability for inducting the employee to the organization really belongs to the manager. So a formalized written process for orientation is something that we use in terms of our managerial practices and it does all these things above. It describes accountability of the role. It talks about the working relationships, how that role relates to other departments, policies, procedures, problems, priorities, safety practices, anything that they need from a managerial perspective to help them be personally effective in the role. It's a very useful and important piece in terms of getting the ongoing personal effectiveness going. And it's again a managerial practice that not all managers, particularly new managers, are familiar with or comfortable with. So they need a little coaching and a little help through the process. And I will often suggest to the manager once removed that once the hiring process is complete, that they then ask the manager who's doing the hiring for a copy of the orientation plan so that they know that there is in fact one being done. In some cases, it's very straightforward. On a manufacturing floor, it happens the same for everyone. In other cases, it may be very individualized to a particular role, but it sets that tone from the very beginning that we really do care and it's all about fairness and accountability. The next thing that happens or in the cycle of how an individual may or may not stay with an organization, we want to talk about as far as deselection from a role and redeployment. And again, this is one of the gifts that I really found in Dr. Jack's problem Management requisite Organization principles. Because at the heart and soul of this, it's also very much a trust inducing situation. Because the context around this and I have a lot of experience with this in the last five years in terms of a merger that I assisted with in my last organization, if you can remember that. In terms of the accountability and authority of a manager. They are setting the accountability for a role. The tasks of the role and the employee or subordinate comes in every day to do their best. So sometimes what will happen is that a manager, there are changes that need to be made in the role, the role may go away or the role may shift to another level and it's not the fault of the employee. And the example that I had over the last five years as Nancy and I worked with this organization in Terry Two, that we put together three major business groups into one organization and we went from 800 employees to just under 600 in a three year time frame. And we had to work very hard to get the accountabilities set for all of the roles that were going to be the new role. But at the same time, we had to work with the human resources group to make sure that proper redeployment or deselection was going to be put into place. Because frankly, in the states, you don't want to be sued for taking people out of a role, but more that's baseline. But what was more important to me is that people really understood that I always said we're going to treat the humans in a very humane way, so that even though we were making the decision to restructure the organization, that employees would have the opportunity to be taken care of appropriately. Because managers made those changes. It wasn't just you didn't do this right, and we're just going to let you go. In cases where it's not working in terms of an immediate manager, as it says up here, you can deselect this is an ongoing situation. You can deselect a subordinate from the role if the person is unable to do the work of the role and the manager has to attempt to correct that situation individually making that decision as Jerry was talking about this morning, and that is one of the accountabilities and the authority of a manager. The manager once removed has to be made aware of the situation so that they can then determine how best to approach that situation and get the human resources people involved in a way that is humane. In the case that I was talking about, individuals were given a chance to look for another role in the organization or outside the organization and were what we called kept whole during that time frame. So it wasn't just released from the organization that they actually were taken. It was a very trust inducing environment because in our case there weren't going to be enough roles. But in other cases where the work of the role may shift and the employee cannot do the work of the role, you need to apply the same process here. So from a very humane perspective they are allowed time to look for another role or to in fact be deselected from the role. Because we make that changes as managers. It's something that we do.